The present invention relates generally to data warehousing, and more particularly, to a data warehouse portal capable of allowing a client to gain an insight about a data warehouse implementation to determine how the data is used, who and what tool uses the data, if additional data sources are required, and what impact a data change may have.
Every day large and small organizations create billions of bytes of data about all aspects of their business, millions of individual facts about their customers, products, operations and people. For the most part, this data is locked up in a countless number of computer systems and is exceedingly difficult to get at. Before, only a small fraction of the data that is captured, processed and stored in the enterprise is actually available to executives and decision makers.
To survive and prosper in an increasingly competitive world, especially in the 1990s and beyond, businesses have to analyze, plan and react to changing business conditions in a much more rapid fashion. To do this, executives and decision makers must be able to get their hands on critical information that already exists in the organization. A set of concepts and tools have evolved into a new technologyxe2x80x94data warehousingxe2x80x94which provides organizations a flexible, effective and efficient way of getting at the enormous amount of data that are one of the organizations"" most critical and valuable assets.
A data warehouse is an informational system rather than an operational system that helps run the enterprise""s daily operations. A data warehouse is generally designed to support decision making relating to xe2x80x9cmarketing planningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cengineering planningxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cfinancial analysisxe2x80x9d etc. in an organization. The data in a data warehouse may be historical/static and/or dynamic, and may also contain numerous summaries. It is structured to support a variety of analyses, including elaborate queries on large amounts of data that can require extensive searching.
However, current data warehouse implementation are growing in many ways:
the amount of data stored, e.g. the amount of historical transaction data kept being expanded from 52 weeks to 104 weeks of data;
the type of data added, e.g. the addition of call center and web data;
the number and type of users accessing the data, e.g. marketing, sales, vendors, buyers, web site designers, operations etc.; and
the number and types of applications accessing the data, e.g. OLAP, Data Mining, SQL, XML, Extractions, Visualization, Segmentation etc.
To accommodate new data sets and applications: databases, tables and fields will be added to the warehouse. The data warehouse designers and administrators will find it increasingly difficult to understand the use and details of each data element. Thus, there is a need for a method and tools to provide the data warehouse designers and administrators an overall view of the data warehouse implementation so they can understand the data structure of an data element and which users are accessing the data element through which application at a certain point in time. None of prior approaches have been known to provide this feature.
Each individual tool and application GUI (Graphic User Interface) application may have an administrator interface to view current data elements, data relationships, users, reports or extractions. However, there is a problem of interoperability. For example, churn reports implemented using an OLAP application cannot be viewed by another OLAP, data mining, visualization, classification, tool or Business Intelligence application. In the future this interoperability issues will be minimized when application vendors adopt a metadata standard or an industry specific XML schema. But today each toll gives the client its specific view of the data warehouse which is limited and does not show if a data element is accessible by other tools or users.
Report Portals, made available by Report2Web and Cognos Upfront, provide users with a browser interface to access reports, documents, and spread sheets published on a web site. A Report Portal also offers a single sign-on, batch updates, searching report titles, moving the reports into a user""s favorite section, and access to ad hoc reporting tools. The Report Portals do not require applications to be installed on the client station or tool-specific user training. However, the Report Portals provide little insight about the data relationships, users, extractions or the applications that use them.
RO/CRM (Relationship Optimizer/Customer Relationship Management) Framework suite, made available by NCR Corporation, provides three client interfaces which are CRM Foundation Administration GUI, CRM Workbench and Application GUI, and CRM Application GUI. These interfaces provide the client with a single interface for data elements, relationships, users, reports, extractions, segmentations and the CRM applications that accesses them. The CRM framework allows the users to view the data and select a CRM tool from the same interface, but so far does not include other type of applications or reports.
A closer approach is made available by SAS Institute Inc. in SAS MetaSpace Explorer. SAS MetaSpace Explorer is browser-based tool (a Java applet) used to find and view business info in a data warehouse. MetaSpace Explorer takes the info, contents of data items and metadata, correctly exported by SAS/Warehouse Administrator and present it logically. The info can be displayed in three ways: by subject, owner or data types. The SAS MetaSpace Explorer requires the metadata provided by other SAS components, and hence, is not application independent.
Though MetaSpace Explorer displays information about data, such as a description written by the warehouse administrator or details about where and how the data is maintained, the major function of the MetaSpace Explorer applet is to view the contents of data items in a data warehouse, rather than to view a data structure of the data elements under which the data items are stored.
The MetaSpace Explorer displays the groups of data that make up the data warehouse. The view contains a list of folders, with each folder corresponding to a logical group of data, such as all data relating to sales or all data owned by a certain person. However, MetaSpace Explorer does not provide information on applications or tools which can be used by the data owners to access the data.
Thus, none of the previously mentioned techniques can provide an overall picture of a data warehouse implementation with an insight about how the data is used, who and which application uses the data, if additional data sources are required, and what impact a data change may have. The previously mentioned techniques also seem incapable of warning the client of new data sets and applications being added to the data warehouse.
In practice, there are various tools that access data in a data warehouse and each tool needs the data differently, manipulates on the data differently, and presents the manipulated data to a user differently. In a very typical operation, for example, customer evaluation, a tool often loads the data items from a data element, e.g. a table, puts the data items into another format, manipulates on them, and stores the manipulated data in another, usually temporary, table. In some cases, the temporary table may be left in the data warehouse for later access by the same tool. But, the data stored in the temporary table may be of a special interest to another tool which, without the knowledge of the presence of temporary table, may create the table again. This consumes unnecessary processing time and storage space.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus which highlight new data sets and/or applications being added to a data warehouse, thereby eliminating the above kind of data duplication and allowing reusability of the data. The method and apparatus should be able to display to a client the changes or additions made to the data elements, relationships, user access, reports and applications. The changes/additions may also be outputted to another application or device, for example, in form of a XML message.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a data warehouse portal for allowing a client, e.g. a database or report designer, an overall picture of the current warehouse implementation of one or more data warehouses to aid in the analysis of data in the data warehouses.
It is a further object of the present invention to allow the client to select a view of the data warehouse implementation by presenting (i) the data and the hierarchy; (ii) the users grouped by department or roles; and (iii) the reports or application used, including segmentation and measures.
It is another object of the present invention to make the client and/or software application and/or dedicated device aware of what data is available and what data is not, by comparing the current warehouse to a historical, planned, department specific or a generic vendor implementation.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to highlight new data elements, additional data, or changes made to data elements, measures, reports, hierarchy.
It is yet another object of the present invention to highlight planned additions of data elements, data, measures, reports, hierarchy.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a structured approach to requesting additional data or data elements to be added to the warehouse.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide well known web-like search and crawling tools to search for the data and the metadata in the warehouses.
It is yet still a further object of the present invention to provide a data warehouse portal which is data warehouse and application independent.
It is yet still another object of the present invention to present the information on an implementation of the data warehouse through a browser-based interface and/or as a XML response.
These and other objects of the present invention are achieved by a method of presenting an implementation of a data warehouse. In accordance with the method, an inquiry requesting information about at least a data element is received. Then, a data structure of the data element is retrieved from the data warehouse. Next, the following information are determined: (i) tools available for accessing the data element, and (ii) users using at least one of the tools to access the data element. Finally, a view is generated in response to the inquiry to show at least one of (i) the data structure retrieved in the retrieving step, (ii) the tools and (iii) the users determined in the determining step.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by a computer architecture for presenting an implementation of a data warehouse. Receiving means are provided for receiving an inquiry requesting information about at least a data element. Retrieving means are provided for retrieving a data structure of the data element from the data warehouse. Determining means are provided for determining (i) tools available for accessing the data element, and (ii) users using at least one of the tools to access the data element. Generating means are provided for generating a view in response to the inquiry showing at least one of (i) the data structure retrieved by the retrieving means, (ii) the tools and (iii) the users determined by the determining means.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by a computer system including a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The memory having stored therein sequences of instructions, which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of a) receiving an inquiry requesting information about at least a data element; b) retrieving a data structure of the data element from the data warehouse; c) determining (i) tools available for accessing the data element, and (ii) users using at least one of the tools to access the data element; and d) generating a view in response to the inquiry showing at least one of (i) the data structure retrieved in the retrieving step, (ii) the tools and (iii) the users determined in the determining step.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by an article for presenting an implementation of a data warehouse. At least one sequence of machine executable instructions is provided on a medium bearing the executable instructions in machine form, wherein execution of the instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to a) receive an inquiry requesting information about at least a data element; b) retrieve a data structure of the data element from the data warehouse; c) determine (i) tools available for accessing the data element, and (ii) users using at least one of the tools to access the data element; and d) generate a view in response to the inquiry showing at least one of (i) the data structure retrieved in the retrieving step, (ii) the tools and (iii) the users determined in the determining step.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by a data warehouse portal for providing an insight of a data warehouse implementation of a plurality of data warehouses. The data warehouse portal comprises a parser, a tools administrator, and a page administrator and generator. The parser reads metadata schemas of each of the plurality of data warehouses, and metadata sets of each of a plurality of tools available for exploiting data stored in the plurality of data warehouses. The tools administrator obtains user information about users who use at least one of the plurality of tools to gain access to the data. The page administrator and generator receives an information inquiry, and generates a view in response to the information inquiry, based on at least one of the metadata schemas, the metadata sets, and the user information.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by a data warehouse portal system for providing an insight of a data warehouse implementation of a plurality of data warehouses. The data warehouse portal system comprises a client station housing a client browser for sending an information inquiry, and a data warehouse portal server connectable to the client station. The data warehouse portal server provides the client browser, in response to the information inquiry, with inquired information about data structures of, and tools and users accessing data elements of the data warehouses, rather than actual data items stored in the data warehouses under the data elements. The data warehouse portal server comprises a parser, a tools administrator, and at least one of HTML page and XML response generators. The parser reads at least one of metadata and XML schemas of each of the plurality of data warehouses, and at least one of metadata and XML schemas of each of a plurality of tools available for exploiting data stored in the data warehouses. The tools administrator obtains user information about users who use at least one of the tools to gain access to the data. The HTML page and XML response generators present the inquired information in response to the information inquiry, based on at least one of the metadata and XML schemas of the data warehouses and the tools, and the user information.
Still other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein the preferred embodiments of the invention are shown and described, simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated of carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description thereof are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive.